 many in the vale, seldom stirred from their mats, where they
would recline for hours and hours, smoking and talking to one another with all
the garrulity of age.
    But the continual happiness which, so far as I was able to judge, appeared
to prevail in the valley, sprung principally from that all-pervading sensation
which Rousseau has told us he at one time experienced, the mere buoyant sense of
a healthful physical existence. And, indeed, in this particular the Typees had
ample reason to felicitate themselves, for sickness was almost unknown. During
the whole period of my stay, I saw but one invalid among them; and on their
smooth clear skins you observed no blemish or mark of disease.
    The general repose, however, upon which I have just been descanting, was
broken in upon about this time by an event which proved that the islanders were
not entirely exempt from those occurrences which disturb the quiet of more
civilised communities.
    Having now been a considerable time in the valley, I began to feel surprised
that the violent hostility subsisting between its inhabitants and those of the
adjoining bay of Happar, should never have manifested itself in any warlike
encounter. Although the valiant Typees would often, by gesticulations, declare
their undying hatred against their enemies, and the disgust they felt at their
cannibal propensities; although they dilated upon the manifold injuries they had
received at their hands, yet, with a forbearance truly commendable, they
appeared patiently to sit down under their grievances, and to refrain from
making any reprisals. The Happars, entrenched behind their mountains, and never
even showing themselves on their summits, did not appear to me to furnish
adequate cause for that excess of animosity evinced toward them by the heroic
tenants of our vale, and I was inclined to believe that the deeds of blood
attributed to them had been greatly exaggerated.
    On the other hand, as the clamours of war had not up to this period
disturbed the serenity of the tribe, I began to distrust the truth of those
reports which ascribed so fierce and belligerent a character to the Typee
nation. Surely, thought I, all these terrible stories I have heard about the
inveteracy with which they carried on the feud, their deadly intensity of
hatred, and the diabolical malice with which they glutted their revenge upon the
inanimate forms of the slain, are nothing more than fables, and I must confess
that I experienced something like a sense of regret at having my hideous
anticipations thus disappointed. I felt in some sort like a 'prentice boy who,
going to the play in the expectation of being delighted with a cut-and-
